The Road to the Playoffs Turns Here

Washington Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan found a silver lining in Tuesday night's 112-100 home loss to the New Jersey Nets by pointing out that his team is still two games above the .500 mark and very much alive in the Eastern Conference playoff picture as it prepares to embark on the season's longest road trip, which starts tonight at Utah against the Jazz (31-35).

Whether Jordan can find similar sources of optimism on April 1, when the Wizards conclude the six-game trip against the defending champion San Antonio Spurs, will depend on his team's performance over the next 10 days.

Between games against the Jazz and Spurs, the Wizards will face the Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings and Houston Rockets.

After last night's games, the Wizards are tied for fifth place with the Indiana Pacers (who defeated Chicago) and are four games behind the fourth-place Cleveland Cavaliers (who beat Charlotte).

However, seventh-place Milwaukee (34-34) is also lurking, and the Wizards know they have to win their share of games to avoid dropping to the seventh or eighth seed, where they would face a first-round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons or Miami Heat.

"We've looked at this road trip since the schedule came out in August," Jordan said. "So this is our defining moment and let's get at it, you know? We're going to have 12 of our last 16 on the road."

Jordan then injected a bit of humor into his comments about the closing push, which includes only four home games.

"I hope everybody enjoys the NCAA tournament and the circus here [at Verizon Center]," he said. "I'm sure it will be a good time."

The Wizards are 10-19 away from Verizon Center and finished a December road trip out west with a 2-3 mark. That trip began with losses to the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland and Seattle before the Wizards salvaged something with wins at Denver and Phoenix.

This trip opens tonight against a Jazz squad that is clinging to its own playoff hopes and helped the cause with a 107-99 home win over Phoenix Tuesday night. Utah is in 10th place in the Western Conference, 1 1/2 games behind eighth-place Sacramento and 1 1/2 games behind the ninth-place New Orleans Hornets.

The atmosphere inside Utah's Delta Center should be electric tonight but it will have little to do with the Wizards and Jazz fighting it out for playoff positioning.

The Jazz will honor forward Karl Malone by retiring his uniform No. 32. The team will also unveil a bronze statue of Malone outside the arena before the game.

"I'm sure the crowd will be going crazy having Malone out there. I'm sure John Stockton and some of the older players will be back for it, too; and to those fans it's going to feel like old times," Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas said. "It's going to be an exciting game, and this first game is going to be very important for us."

The Wizards have shown an ability to buckle down and get the job done on the road at times this season. Three of the season's most impressive victories came at Detroit on Nov. 25, at Phoenix on Dec. 23 and at Cleveland on Feb. 24.

"We have played well on the road, I feel," said Wizards forward Caron Butler. "We're not a team that's ever just totally out of it. We're always in the game down to the last few minutes. Mentally, we just have to be tough enough to go out there and get some wins. We'd love to win all of them, but it's a must that we go at least .500 or better out there. We are prepared for that challenge."

Butler, who played for the Lakers last season, and Arenas, who began his career with Golden State, said one key to the trip will be matching the other team's energy level because Western Conference teams expect to see a visiting Eastern Conference team lose its legs if the game's tempo is fast-paced.

"We used to kill 'em that way," Arenas said. "You can tell if someone is just ready to go home, if they are on their last leg, you can tell that from the start of the game. That's when you just put it on them. Just run 'em. And if they're on that last leg, they don't want to play that fourth quarter. But we're not a grind-it-out team. We like to get up and go, so playing against the West is fun for us. We're ready for it."